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Minerals
Ch 4 Sec 2: How Minerals Form
Guide for Reading
■ How do minerals form from magma and lava?
■ How do minerals form from water solutions?

A geode is a rounded, hollow rock that is often lined with mineral

crystals. It is formed in the way that all minerals generally are
formed—through crystallization, the process by which atoms are
arranged to form a material with a crystal structure.

One of the two ways minerals form is by:

1. crystallization of magma (cools inside the crust) or lava (cools
& hardens on the surface)
2. crystallization of materials dissolved in water.

When these liquids cool to a solid state, they form crystals.

The size of these crystals depends on several factors:

1. The rate at which magma cools

Slow cooling leads to the formation of large crystals.
If the crystals remain undisturbed while cooling, they grow
according to a regular pattern.
Magma closer to the surface cools much faster than magma that
hardens deep below ground.
With rapid cooling, there is no time for magma to form large
crystals.
If magma erupts to the surface and becomes lava, the lava will
also cool quickly and form minerals with small crystals.

2. the amount of gas magma contains

3.the chemical composition of magma

Some minerals form from solutions

Sometimes the elements and compounds that form minerals can be
dissolved in water to form solutions. A solution is a mixture in which
one substance is dissolved in another. When elements and compounds
that are dissolved in water leave a solution, crystallization occurs.
Minerals form in this way underground & in bodies of water.

Minerals form when solutions evaporate

For example, deposits of the mineral halite, or table salt, formed over
millions of years when ancient seas slowly evaporated. This occurs in
the Midwest, Southwest and Gulf coast. Other useful minerals that can
form by evaporation include gypsum and calcite.

Some minerals form from hot water solutions.

Pure metals that crystallize from hot water solutions underground often
form veins. A vein is a narrow channel or slab of a mineral that is
different from the surrounding rock.

Magma heats the water underground
elements & compounds

dissolve in hot water to form solutions
the solutions follow cracks
within the rock
elements & compounds leave the solution during
cooling and crystallize as minerals
these minerals form a narrow
channel or slab in the rock called a vein.

Where minerals form: Both occur through crystallization

Minerals can form on the surface through evaporation of

solutions containing dissolved minerals.
Minerals can form beneath the surface when dissolved elements
and compounds leave a hot water solution or when materials
melted in magma/ lava then cools & hardens.